Does He Know the Way to Worship
by Ryan Ninea
Summary: AH. OOC. Bella married Liam when she was 18 years old. He is her best friend and knows her better than anyone, but is that enough. Metting Edward Cullen makes this question even harder to answer.
1. Chapter 1

**I do not, in any way, profit from this story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator.**

**AH OOC. ExB.**

**Prologue**

**As he walked out the door he turned to her and said "I love you baby, I'll call you when we land. I hate these months apart."**

"**I know Li, but you're gonna miss your plane." She pleaded while kissing him on the cheek. **

"**I love you Bella." He said as he searched her eyes, and denied what he saw.**

"**I can't wait for you to come home Liam" **

**She hated seeing that defeated look on his face, but that was what she could live with. He gave her a proper kiss goodbye and it was almost like it used to be. **

"**I miss you Bella." He said just before he shut the door. **

**Chapter One **

**This is my biggest interview this year and I am already five minutes late **_**and**_** I'm only halfway there. Shit. Since I am no exception to that Anita Blake twelve minute purse rule, it is damn near impossible to dig out my cell phone and navigate downtown Seattle traffic. Luckily a red-light saves the day and I remembered to program her number into my phone when I got the assignment. I just hope she isn't mad. **

"**Bella, thank you for calling. That was very considerate." the lilting voice on the other end of the phone said without a hint of sarcasm. Curious. **

"**Of course Mrs. Whitlock, this is Bella McGregor, but I guess you already knew that." I laughed with a touch of unease.**

"**You're caught in traffic. I already have my latte and I got you a raspberry cappuccino. I am actually enjoying this rare moment to myself. No worries. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."**

"**Ok?" I replied before I realized she had already hung up. **

**When I pulled into to the café, I half expected her to really be pissed at me. Typically moguls, even burgeoning ones, don't like to be kept waiting but Alice Whitlock's face lit up like a Christmas tree when I walked in and she all but danced across the floor to meet me. **"**Bella" she said taking my hand, inexplicably beaming at me. **

"**Mrs. Whit"**

"**Shh, don't start that again, it's Alice."**

"**I'm so sorry that I was late, I know how valuable your time is. There was this pile up, I really should have left earlier but my husband left today for London. He won't be back for a month. He's been doing this for over a year, but it still isn't easy." I babbled at her. Why can't I shut up? She doesn't want to listen to my freaking life story.**

"**I understand Bella, and I meant it when I said I was enjoying the time to myself. Between work, and my family, I barely get a moment alone."**

"**Well I suppose we should get started then." I said taking a sip of my cappuccino. **

**Alice and I discussed her winter line which will be released next month. She explained how she gets a lot of inspiration for her husband, Jasper Whitlock's, artwork. We talked about her plans to launch a swimsuit line this spring, and the designer scented sun block she is pioneering. **

**We touched on her childhood, being adopted by the world renown surgeon Carlisle Cullen when she was just a baby. That lead to what is was like growing up with two brothers and many crazy stories about water balloons and shaving cream and general silliness. I told her that I was an only child, unless you counted my husband who lived next door for most of my life. She gave me a look that I couldn't begin to understand, and that's when we realized we had been talking for three hours. **

"**Oh, Alice I am so sorry I kept you so long."**

"**Bella, please it isn't your fault, but I do need to get going, I am meeting my brother in an twenty minutes across town. Ha, now it looks like I'm the one who's going to be late."**

"**Ok, well please don't let me keep you any longer, I'm just going to sit here and type up my notes before I forget what I wrote." With my atrocious penmanship I would never be able to read it tomorrow. "I'll be in touch when the piece is finished so you can see it before it goes to print."**

"**If you say so." Alice said with a knowing smirk before pulling a knit cap over her short hair and walking into the misting Washington Monday.**

**What a quirky woman.**


	2. The Child Is Gone

I know nothing about Seattle. I just couldn't find a reason to bring the characters somewhere I do know. I will to research, but if I get anything glaringly wrong please forgive me.

This chapter may be a little boring, lots of internal Bella rambling, but it was necessary.I dig Liam's taste in music, just so you know.

Chapter 2

Guilt is a worthless emotion. That's why I have decided that for the first time in six months, I am not going to feel guilty about loving my empty apartment. Normally I am so torn up about not missing Liam that I can't enjoy the time to myself.

Liam is a lawyer, so he isn't home that much to begin with. In law school, he was home even less. That worked out well for us, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. I like to keep to myself. When I am concentrating, I don't like to be bothered.

Liam is, very distracting.

Looking at him, you would never guess he is an up and coming international lawyer. He has shaggy black hair and full sleeve tattoos. Luckily, hair can be slicked back and suits cover just about everything. When he comes home the first thing he does is take a shower. I swear, one man walks into my bathroom, and someone else walks back out.

Once he is in his ratty old jeans and a t-shirt the boy I grew up next door to is back full force. He is LOUD. He plays his guitar, and sings at the top of his lungs. He jumps around the house like a toddler on crack. He yells at the soccer game. He cranks up ridiculous music on the stereo. It all sounds generic and whiny, or vulgar and whiny. Always with the whiny.

Even when he is doing something "quiet" like composing music, or painting, or writing he is loud. He is the noisiest typist I have ever heard, he sighs and growls and grumbles as he works though whatever creative inspiration has hit. I can hear it all the way across the apartment.

He also has the libido of a fourteen year old. He is always flirting with me, and that is a problem all its own.

Liam and I have been together for nine years. We started dating I was sixteen, and married immediately after high school graduation. He was my first love; but about 2 years ago I started thinking maybe it was the wrong kind of love. I care about Liam, and I can't imagine going a day without talking to him. I just enjoy our conversations so much more when he is on the other side of the world.

Liam and I have had this talk. Multiple time over the last two years. I told him that I didn't think we belonged together. I told him we were better as friends, and that if way stayed together we would ruin anything we had. He says it's the distance that is killing us, and to please give him until November, when he would be back home more. I tried to tell him that he coming home is what is killing us. How do you tell a teary lawyer that the only remedy for our marriage is a divorce? What do you do when he won't listen to the truth, and keeps believing his own delusions of marital bliss.

I don't know either.

This is why I can't sleep with him. God knows I want to, but it would be so wrong. He read into it, and I would right back at guilty. So I ignore his constant advances and wear out my vibrator.

The obnoxious ringing of my cell phone brought me out of my masturbatory musings. I fumbled through my too large purse until I found the offending object. I talked to Liam just an hour ago, so I don't know what he could want now.

"Hello" I say a little more terse than necessary.

"Bella, so glad I caught you. It's Alice."

"Oh. Hi Alice, what can I do for you?"

"I think we switched agendas at the cafe' I just pulled mine out to confirm a date, and nothing in here is mine. We must have the same model." I pulled mine out to check and sure enough, we had mixed them up.

"Yea, this defiantly isn't mine." I confirmed.

"I hate to be a bother, but could you come meet me and switch them? I see your address here in the front and we aren't far at all. I am really pressed for time and it would be a tremendous help. You are home aren't you?"

"Yea I'm home. Where are you?"

"The Pink Door. You know where it is?"

"Yea sure, I'll be right there."

"Ok, we're on the deck, see you soon."

I grabbed my keys, and started to head for my car, but then I thought about parking and decided to hoof it. The Pink door is about 10 blocks from my house, less than a mile and it is a really nice day.


End file.
